In 1806 he succeeded Lord Foley at Quorn, and for ten years hunted Leicestershire with first-rate hounds, for a portion of which he had paid to Mr. Musters 1000 guineas, until, in 1816, he took the place of Mr. Osbaldiston in Lincolnshire, where he hunted the Burton country for eight years. He then, ceasing for two years to be a master of hounds, hunted with the Duke of Rutland and in the neighbouring counties until 1826, when, taking up his residence at Penton Lodge, he created for himself a new country between Andover and Salisbury. In 1830—two years after the death of his father, from whom he inherited a very large fortune—he removed to Tedworth, which he had lately rebuilt with magnificent kennels, and stables in which every hunter had a loose box. In these stables he had often as many as fifty horses, all in first-rate condition. For thirty-two years he hunted the Tedworth country without ever asking for subscriptions of any sort or kind. All he begged of the landowners and of those who hunted with him was to preserve foxes to enable him to kill them. At his meets his friend and guest the late Duke of Wellington often attended. In stature Mr. Smith was about 5 feet 10 inches high, athletic, well-proportioned, muscular, but slight. His weight was between eleven and twelve stone. With a highly-intelligent but resolute countenance, containing (as was observed of it) "a dash of the bulldog," he had plain features. "That fellow Jack Musters," Tom Smith used to say, "spoilt my beauty." For several years, though his name was seldom found in the debates, he represented in Parliament Carnarvonshire and Andover; and in 1832, in consequence of the riots which took place in that year, he raised, at his own expense, a corps of yeomanry cavalry, reviewed by the Duke of Wellington, the troopers of which were chiefly his own tenants or farmers of the neighbourhood. For upwards of fifty seasons he continued to be the master of hounds, until, after having been in his saddle for seventy years, the boy who in 1783 went to Eton when he was seven years old, died at Vaenol on the 9th of September, 1858, aged eighty-two.
At the earnest request of his widow, Sir John E. Eardley-Wilmot (assisted by extracts from the 'Field' newspaper), with considerable spirit and ability, has lately compiled a series of graphic incidents and sketches, forming altogether a memoir—or, as he terms them, 'Reminiscences'—of the life of one whom Napoleon I. addressed as "le premier chasseur d'Angleterre," and who was also called by the Parisians "le grand chasseur Smit." From this volume we shall now submit to our readers a few extracts.
"Lord Foley," wrote 'Nimrod,' "was succeeded in the possession of the Quorn hounds by that most conspicuous sportsman of modern times, Thomas Assheton Smith. As combining the character of a skilful sportsman with that of a desperate horseman, perhaps his parallel is not to be found; and his name will be handed down to posterity as a specimen of enthusiastic zeal in one individual pursuit, very rarely equalled. From the first day of the season to the last he was always the same man, the same desperate fellow over a country, and unquestionably possessing, on every occasion and at every hour of the day, the most bulldog nerve ever exhibited in the saddle. His motto was, 'I'll be with my hounds;' and all those who have seen him in the field must acknowledge he made no vain boast of his prowess. His falls were countless; and no wonder, for he rode at places which he knew no horse could leap over; but his object was to get, one way or the other, into the field with his hounds. As a horseman, however, he has ever been super-excellent. He sits in his saddle as if he were part of his horse, and his seat displays vast power over his frame. In addition to his power his hand is equal to Chifney's, and the advantage he experiences from it may be gleaned from the following expression. Being seen one day hunting his hounds on Radical, always a difficult, but at that time a more than commonly difficult, horse to ride, he was asked by a friend why he did not put a martingale on him, to give him more power over his mouth. 'Thank ye,' he replied, 'but my left hand shall be my martingale.'"
His fame and success in Lincolnshire were as great as at Quorn. The Melton men followed him, knowing they were sure of good sport wherever he went, although scarcely one of them was quite prepared for the formidable drains or dykes in the Burton Hunt. Shortly after their arrival there, they found a fox near the kennels that crossed a dyke called the Tilla. Tom Smith, the only one who rode at it, got in, but over, leaving behind him fourteen of the Meltonians floundering in the water at the same time, which so cooled their ardour that, excepting Sir H. Goodricke, gallant David Baird, and one or two others, they soon returned to Melton.
Mr. Delmé Ratcliffe, in his work on the 'Noble Science of Fox-hunting,' describes Tom Smith as follows:—
"I could nowhere find a more fitting model for the rising generation of sportsmen.... He was an instance of the very rare union of coolness and consummate skill as a huntsman, combined with the impetuosity of a most desperate rider; and not only was he the most determined of all riders, but equally remarkable as a horseman.
"Now I am not going to give merely my own opinion of Mr. Thomas Assheton Smith, as a horseman and rider to hounds, but shall lay before my readers that of all the sporting world, at least all who have seen him in the field; which is, that, taking him from the first day's hunting of the season to the last, place him on the best horse in his stable or on the worst, he is sure to be with his hounds, and close to them too. In fact, he has undoubtedly proved himself the best and hardest rider England ever saw, and it would be vain in any man to dispute his title to that character."
Again, says Mr. Apperley—
"Let us look at him in his saddle. Does he not look like a workman? Observe how lightly he sits! No one could suppose him to be a twelve-stone man. And what a firm hand he has on his horses! How well he puts them at their fences, and what chances he gives them to extricate themselves from any scrape they may have gotten into! He never hurries them then; no man ever saw Tom Smith ride fast at his fences, at least at large ones (brooks excepted), let the pace be what it may; and what a treat it is to see him jump water! His falls, to be sure, have been innumerable; but what very hard-riding man does not get falls? Hundreds of Mr. Smith's falls may be accounted for: he has measured his horses' pluck by his own, and ridden at hundreds of non-feasible places, with the chance of getting over them somehow."
Again: "No man," says Dick Christian, "that ever came into Leicestershire could beat Mr. Smith—I do not care what any of them say;" while "The Druid," in 'Silk and Scarlet,' after giving some very interesting anecdotes of Tom Smith, says of him, "However hasty in temper and action he might be in the field or on the flags, he was the mightiest hunter that ever 'rode across Belvoir's sweet vale' or wore a horn at his saddle-bow."
"His wonderful influence," he adds, "over his hunters was strongly exemplified at another time, but in rather a different manner. He had mounted a friend, who complained of having nothing to ride, on his celebrated horse Cicero. The hounds were running breast-high across the big pasture lands of Leicestershire, and Cicero was carrying his rider like a bird, when a strong flight of rails had almost too ugly an aspect of height, strength, and newness for the liking of our friend on his 'mount.' The keen eye of Assheton Smith, as he rode beside him, at once discerned that he had no relish for the timber, and seeing that he was likely to make the horse refuse, he cried out, 'Come up, Cicero!' His well-known voice had at once the desired effect; but Cicero's rider, by whom the performance was not intended, left his 'seat' vacant, fortunately without any other result than a roll upon the grass."
"I have said," remarks Nimrod, "that Mr. Smith's make and shape, together with a fine bridle-hand, have assisted him in rising to perfection as a horseman."
"I once saw," relates a friend, "a fine specimen of Mr. Smith's hand and nerve in the going off of a frost, when the bone was not quite out of the ground. We were running a fox hard over Salisbury Plain, when all at once his horse came on a treacherous flat, greasy at top, as sportsmen say, but hard and slippery underneath. The horse he rode was a hard puller, and very violent, named Piccadilly; and the least check from the bridle, when the animal began to blunder, would have to a certainty made him slip up. Here the fine riding of the squire shone conspicuously. He left his horse entirely alone, as if he were swimming; and after floundering about and swerving for at least a hundred yards, Piccadilly recovered himself, and went on as if nothing had happened."
"At the end of a desperate run, he once charged the river Welland, which divides the counties of Leicester, Northampton, and Rutland, and is said to be altogether impracticable. The knack he had of getting across water is to be attributed to his resolute way of riding to hounds, by which his horses knew that it was in vain to refuse whatever he might put them at."